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Here is the latest edition of "Immigration Matters!" _____
Immigration Matters!
February 04 - February 10, 2005
The weekly news summary of the International Institute of San Francisco
The goal of Immigration Matters!
is to keep you informed about issues affecting immigrants, refugees and asylees.
The stories here do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute.
You can support the work of the International Institute of San Francisco with a tax-deductible donation at . IISF uses PayPal®, the leader in secure on-line payment options.
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To view the entire article, click on the headline in the Preview.
February 04, 2005
1. Visa cap shuts foreign workers out of state
2. 1,000 immigrants denied citizenship may join suit
3. Anti-terror bill targets asylum seekers
4. Pee in Public, Get Deported
5. Women and girls from Honduras forced to work at bar
February 05, 2005
6. Virginia, leave immigration to the feds - Editorial
7. Supporters challenge denial of Jarno’s asylum
8. Oaxacans make a mark
February 06, 2005
9. Some would-be citizens languish for years in security-check limbo
10. Woman contests deportation
February 07, 2005
11. Britain pledges tighter immigration policy
12. Foolish proposals trip up serious talk on immigration - Opinion
13. Asylum seekers treated poorly, U.S. panel says
February 08, 2005
14. Human Rights commission criticizes Mexico’s immigration detention centers
15. Judge orders Islamic fund-raiser deported
16. Stages set for local, national battles on immigrant licenses
February 09, 2005
17. Judge allows suit against U.S. immigration official
18. Students journey across America to study immigration
19. Goal of U.S. citizenship reached
February 10, 2005
20. House to vote on Immigration Bill
21. Panel rejects immigration law training bill
22. Immigrant protection passes state Senate
INSTRUCTIONS: To view the entire article, click on the headline in the Preview.
February 04, 2005
1. Visa cap shuts foreign workers out of state
From the Rapid City Journal
ABERDEEN (AP) - A federal program that lets employers apply for temporary foreign workers to meet seasonal labor needs isn’t accepting any more people for the program right now, and some South Dakota employers are worried theywon’t have enough necessary workers.
The limit on the program was enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Loren Herzog, a seasonal employer and an owner of Pro-Tec Roofing Inc. based in Watertown.
“This is the earliest they’ve ever reached the cap,” Herzog said.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says that on Jan. 3, it had “received enough H-2B petitions to meet this year’s congressionally mandated cap of 66,000 new workers.”
That means Jim Sayler, who owns an Aberdeen construction company, might lose some work this season. He wants to see the limit raised on the H-2B program, a federal temporary-worker visa program that deals with nonfarm jobs including landscaping, food processing and construction.
“According to the South Dakota Department of Labor, only 70 out of (the state’s) 1,084 applicants were certified in time to qualify before the cutoff, leaving the majority of employers using this program to get cleaners, cooks, resort attendants, landscapers, construction workers ... without their much-needed help,” said Tina Andrew of Employment USA, an Aberdeen firm that finds seasonal work for South Africans in the United States.
Sayler said employers can apply no earlier than about four months before the date they need workers. Usually, he starts his workers in April. Last year, Sayler made it just before the cap was reached.
This time, he started even earlier so he could have the workers he needs by the end of February. But the limit already had been met.
Sayler said the work seasons in the southern United States start earlier, so all the visas were spoken for.
“I think they just need to extend the amount (of visas) that they issue,” Herzog said.
He said he has advertised for American workers for weeks and has had no applications. This would have been his fourth year hiring South Africans.
Sayler has hired South Africans for three years. “We’ve had a (hard time) keeping local workers,” he said, adding that some may not like the work.
“They want to work,” Sayler said. “They’re here to work and earn money. They pay taxes.”
The hourly wage for the foreign workers, set by the U.S. government, is $8.83.
Both Herzog and Sayler say they’ve contacted the offices of South Dakota’s senators, and they hope that the issue can be addressed.
Sen. Tim Johnson’s office is working with several senators on a regional approach to the issue, said Julianne Fisher of Johnson’s staff.
“We are seeking avenues to help alleviate this situation,” Fisher said.
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2. 1,000 immigrants denied citizenship may join suit
Class action will explore the extent of faulty rejections
By Gene Johnson - Associated Press
From the Houston Chronicle
SEATTLE - As many as 1,000 people who may have been wrongly denied U.S. citizenship for minor infractions eventually could be given the oath, thanks to a lawsuit brought by a South Korean man who was rejected because he once gathered too many oysters along a beach.
U.S. officials conceded that from 1998 to 2004, immigration authorities in Seattle misapplied the “good moral character” standard for naturalization and routinely denied citizenship to people because of minor infractions on their record.
Among them was Kichul Lee, who in 1999 was fined $152 for collecting 51 oysters, almost three dozen more than the state’s limit, along a Washington beach. In 2003, he was denied citizenship because of it.
“Taking too many oysters off the beach doesn’t show you lack good moral character,” said Lee’s attorney, Robert Gibbs.
Immigration officials admit Lee and some other immigrants were wrongly rejected for offenses as minor as traffic infractions, but a judge agreed last month to let such claims for citizenship go forward as a class action, meaning hundreds of people could join the case. The judge ordered Wednesday that Lee and three others be sworn in, even as the case progresses.
Immigration officials in Seattle have reassigned a supervisor and retrained workers to carry out policies correctly. But U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik said the case should go forward to establish whether the government has taken adequate steps to solve the problem and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Kristin Johnson, a government attorney representing the Seattle immigration office, said Lasnik’s ruling was fair and that a class action would be a good way to determine how extensive the mistakes were.
In his ruling, Lasnik said several hundred applicants may have been denied citizenship based on incorrect character findings. Gibbs put the figure at 500 to 1,000 and said the problem appears confined to the Seattle office.
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3. Anti-terror bill targets asylum seekers
By William Fisher - AntiWar.com
Controversial anti-immigration provisions that were stripped from an intelligence bill last year have resurfaced as the “Real ID Act,” setting the stage for a partisan fight in Congress that could affect the cases of thousands of asylum-seekers.
Authored by the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a conservative republican from Wisconsin, the bill has 115 co-sponsors, all but one Republican.
It sets tougher security standards for the issuance of drivers’ licenses, including proof of lawful presence in the U.S. All states would be required to comply, to “eliminate weak links in domestic identity security.”
The act would also close the three-mile gap in the fortified U.S.-Mexico border fence near San Diego, California.
But it is the asylum provisions of the proposal that have drawn fire from human rights groups.
These would amend the refugee system, which Rep. Sensenbrenner says has been “abused by terrorists,” allowing immigration judges to determine witness credibility in asylum cases, and raising the bar for many asylum-seekers to prove they are fleeing persecution in their home countries.
“It is deeply unfortunate that Chairman Sensenbrenner has made his top priority an unwarranted attack on immigrants,” Tim Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told IPS.
Another group, Human Rights First (HRF), warned that “if enacted, the bill’s anti-refugee provisions would fundamentally change U.S. asylum law. Many refugees who have fled brutal human rights abuses - including torture, rape, and other horrific violence - will be barred from receiving asylum under these provisions.”
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4. Pee in Public, Get Deported By Elena Shore - Asian Week
Sor Vann never thought he would be deported for peeing. A construction worker from Houston, Texas, he urinated at his work site and was convicted of indecent exposure. Later, he did it again and was hauled in for violating parole, according to The New York Times. In 2002, after serving four years in jail, Vann, 34, was deported to Cambodia, the country he had fled as an 11-year-old during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Vann was detained and deported under a 1996 law signed by President Clinton. Representing a major change in U.S. immigration policy, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act increased the penalties for the criminal convictions of non-U.S. citizens.
Now the National Immigration Forum reports that “legal immigrants who have lived here for nearly their entire lives are being deported for minor crimes committed years - and sometimes decades - ago.”
Virginia Kice, spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said, “When Congress enacts laws, our responsibility is to enforce them.”
Before 1996, a category of crimes known as “aggravated felonies” was limited to including serious offenses like murder and drug trafficking or where sentences were five years or more. The 1996 law lowered the minimum sentence to one year. In what Joren Lyons, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, refers to as “a rather Orwellian twist,” the law now includes statutory rape, theft, vandalism and possession of stolen property.
Prior to 1996, a legal resident facing deportation could get a hearing that took into consideration factors such as his or her rehabilitation efforts, family ties and community service. Now, once immigration officials have initiated a removal proceeding, a deportation order is certain for a person convicted of any aggravated felony. A removal proceeding can begin regardless of how long ago his or her criminal conviction occurred.
“The policies are written so that someone who has committed murder as well as someone who has urinated in public [could] become eligible for deportation,” said Loan Dao, a graduate student in the ethnic studies department at UC Berkeley.
“If you do not hold legal citizenship, that means that you are at risk of double punishment, being punished in a way that citizens are not,” she said. “Remember, all these people have served their time.”
In fact, some detainees spend more time in immigration custody than they do in jail or prison, according to a report by Lyons.
Court rulings have been mixed: striking down the practice of lengthy detentions but also supporting deportation orders to countries where there are no functioning governments, like Somalia.
This does not change anything for immigrants from Vietnam, Laos and Cuba, which have flatly refused to accept deportees from the United States. They still cannot be deported, though they continue to be detained and face removal orders that currently carry no weight.
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5. Women and girls from Honduras forced to work at bar
Associated Press
From New York Newsday
NEWARK, N.J. -- Dozens of Honduran women and girls were smuggled into the United States and forced to work at a bar to earn freedom from the traffickers, federal authorities charged.
The women told agents they had expected to work as waitresses in restaurants, but were ordered to drink and dance with men at the El Paisano Bar and Night Club in Union City.
One woman told agents her family had paid $5,000 in Honduras to have her smuggled, but “after she got to the United States, she was told that she owed another $15,000 smuggling fee,” according to documents filed in U.S. District Court. One illegal immigrant said she had been trying to pay off her debt for two years.
One woman was jailed Thursday on federal charges of harboring illegal immigrants, and investigators were searching for her sister and several others.
The charges stemmed from raids last month at a house and apartment in Union City. U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents found 19 Hondurans staying there, including six juveniles.
“It was forced labor _ whatever they wanted them to do,” Thomas Manifase, the assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s Newark office, told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
The illegal immigrants were routinely encouraged to consider working as prostitutes to make more money, and were told they would be deported if they left the bar or their living quarters above the bar and at a house in Union City, according to court papers.
One suspect, Ana Luz Rosales Martinez, 37, is being held without bail. Her sister, Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez, is a fugitive.
Bar owner Isidro Claros told the newspaper he was unaware of the ring and did not know the Rosales sisters.
“Everyone comes here to drink beer and dance, that’s it,” said Claros, who has not been charged. “This is a bar like any other. Men and women come here like any other bar.”
In February 2002, authorities cracked a ring that had lured four young Mexican woman to work as prostitutes in Plainfield. Eight people were charged; six pleaded guilty and two remain at large.
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February 05, 2005
6. Virginia, leave immigration to the feds - Editorial
Legislation penalizing illegal aliens smacks of lawmakers’ meddlesome intolerance.
The Roanoke Times
Virginia has poked its nose where it’s not warranted. Concern for individuals’ immigration status is the responsibility of the federal government.
Yet Virginia lawmakers sponsored several bills this session that penalize undocumented aliens in a number of ways, ranging from barring their attendance at state colleges to stripping them of most workers’ compensation benefits. Such legislation suggests prejudicial impulses. Illegal immigration does pose problems, but those are national in their scope.
The idea of barring undocumented immigrants from Virginia’s public colleges undermines the principle that education spawns economic advancement.
Denying admission to undocumented alien students could deny opportunity to a student who is illegal through no fault of his or her own, having entered the country as a child with parents seeking a better life.
State leaders should realize that an undocumented alien who shows up, for example, at the University of Virginia with the desire and requisite grades is very likely the type of hard-working student the state should welcome into the higher education system.
One proposal would limit workers’ compensation to medical benefits only - but not lost wages or wrongful death benefits - for illegal immigrants who sustain injury on the job. Such restrictions are shortsighted.
As one lawmaker correctly noted, the measure violates the principle behind workers’ compensation by shortchanging workers who perform some of the most dangerous jobs in the state.
With an increasing influx of immigrant workers coming to Virginia, state leaders should avoid the impulse to undermine opportunities for employees hired by Virginia businesses and who are vital to the state’s economic fortunes.
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility properly left to Washington. Virginia should not divert its limited resources from critical obligations of its own.
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7. Supporters challenge denial of Jarno’s asylum
It’s a story of a failing system, Rep. Todd Platts said
By Caryl Clarke - York Daily Record
Immigration Judge Joan V. Churchill’s[ccl: Joan V. Churchill cq: ] reasons for denying asylum to Malik Jarno, an orphan from Guinea, make no sense to the young man’s supporters.
Churchill issued her 135-page ruling Dec. 29.
Jarno, who supporters say turned 20 on Jan. 7, has lived in York’s International Friendship House since his release from the York County Prison on Dec. 23, 2003. He has been in immigration custody since his 2001 arrival in Virginia.
The decision disappointed U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County.
“His whole story is an example of a failing system,” Platts said. “Asylum is appropriate. I am a strong supporter of strengthening immigration laws. We need, also, to remain a beacon of hope for people in desperate straits.”
The government should have been more responsible and compassionate in its handling of Jarno, Platts said. Jarno has appealed, and Platts said he hopes for success.
He was not aware of any plan to return Jarno to prison. Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security official who freed Jarno, said the release would remain in effect until his case is resolved, according to Platts.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum[ccl: Rick Santorum cq: ], R-Pa., released a statement saying he was “disappointed for Malik and those who worked so hard on his behalf.”
He said he could not comment on the judge’s ruling because he had not read it.
Blain Rethmeier[ccl: Blain Rethmeier cq: ], spokesman for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the office would continue to monitor Jarno’s case closely.
Churchill ruled that Jarno had firmly resettled in the Ivory Coast or France, after fleeing Guinea, and thus was not eligible for asylum.
“We believe you need proof of permanent status,” said Jarno’s attorney, Christopher Nugent,[ccl: Christopher Nugent cq: ] of the Holland & Knight[ccl: Holland & Knight cq: ] law firm in Washington, D.C. “Malik did not have that at all.”
Many testified that Jarno’s father was the chief imam of the mosque next to his family’s home. He was an opposition leader for democracy.
Jarno testified that when his father sensed a crackdown by the government, he had a friend escort his 13-year-old son to the Ivory Coast to join his aunt and uncle. Jarno’s father was killed in the 1998 government slaughter of Kaporo Rails in Guinea . His uncle and stepbrother are presumed dead.
His aunt and uncle moved to France in 2000 on a six-month visa. The uncle left, then the aunt. Jarno briefly lived with a friend who shortly booked him on a flight to America, with fake identification papers and instructions to ask for asylum as a refugee from the Congo.
The judge said Jarno would not qualify for protection under the Convention Against Torture Act. She wrote that it did not apply because Jarno was deportable only to France.
“That made no sense because the Department of Homeland Security obtained the travel papers more than once to deport him to Guinea,” Nugent said. “France would only dump him back to Guinea.”
Churchill was not convinced of Jarno’s mental impairment. Intelligence evaluations by three psychologists showed his IQ to be 63-66, which represents mild mental retardation.
Without constant supervision at home and at work, Jarno would easily lose his bearings and become vulnerable to anybody with an ill will, David Gold, a clinical psychologist, testified. However, appropriate guidance and supervision would allow Jarno to lead a happy, healthy life.
Churchill wrote that even if Jarno has intelligence issues, he would not be at risk because the humanitarian organizations in Guinea know about him and would care for him.
She wrote that Jarno’s international notoriety would protect him from harm. He has nothing to fear from the Guinean government.
Churchill wrote that the birth certificate validated by the Guinean Embassy did not establish Jarno’s identity.
In the end, the judge simply did not believe Jarno. His body language suggested to her that he was not truthful, she wrote.
“We are all very disappointed,” Nugent said.
The team of 30 volunteer attorneys from several firms needed time to digest the ruling and parcel out responsibilities. They submitted a notice to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals by the Jan. 28 deadline.
By the time a transcript arrives and the formal appeal is prepared, responded to by the government and argued in court, a year may easily pass, Nugent said.
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8. Oaxacans make a mark
South county home to thriving new community
By Claudia Meléndez Salinas - The Salinas Californian
Catalina Flores was only 5 when she first left her remote village in the Oaxacan mountains of Mexico to find work.
Her family moved to Sinaloa, Mexico, to join the tomato harvest. Though little, Flores could still dump tomatoes into white buckets her father emptied in production trucks.
But even with her help and that of her brothers and sister, the money wasn’t enough to feed them all. So the family kept moving north, first to Ensenada, Mexico, and later to California.
Flores, a 24-year-old Triqui Indian from Oaxaca, arrived in Greenfield in 2002. She’s part of the most recent wave of Mexican migration to the United States, one that’s pushing the indigenous people out of Mexico while highlighting its cultural diversity.
Although Oaxacans began arriving in Monterey County in the early to mid 1990s, their presence was barely noticed until U.S. immigration officials raided an apartment complex in Greenfield and deported 39 Triqui men in April 2001.
The indigenous community in south Monterey County gained widespread attention again in June, when a young Mixtec farm worker gave birth to a premature baby in a portable toilet near Soledad.
Within hours of her baby’s birth, the 17-year-old girl was arrested and later charged with attempted murder and felony child endangerment.
The teenager has said she did not know she was pregnant, and for many health-care officials, her case is emblematic of the challenges the indigenous community faces:
They come from poor, remote rural areas where access to medical treatment is scarce. Many are undocumented immigrants, so even if they know that emergency care is available, some are too scared of running into authorities to seek it. More importantly, many indigenous Oaxacan newcomers speak a language other than Spanish, so they have trouble communicating even with local bilingual health-care workers.
“We’re having problems with them speaking,” said Dr. Max Cuevas, chief executive officer for Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, a network of seven clinics across the Salinas Valley. “We’ve tried to get translators, but we’ve run into problems because many of them are undocumented. We can’t hire them.”
But in spite of their legal status, thousands of them find work in California’s agricultural industry, where one in five farm workers is believed to be an indigenous Mexican from Oaxaca.
“They’re doing the work that nobody else wants to do,” said Maria Giuriato, community relations director of Monterey County Department of Social Services and also a member of the Salinas City Council.
Many health-care officials, social workers and educators have expressed a desire to learn more about this new group, its language and culture that seems so different from traditional Mexican migrants. The answers to such questions can be surprising.
Proud roots but few options
Oaxaca, birthplace of these people, is a culturally rich state along the Pacific Coast in southern Mexico. In the valley of the state’s capital, the Zapotec, an ancient Mesoamerican group, built Monte Alban toward 500 A.D. Their pre-Hispanic citadel later was occupied by the Mixtec, known for their manuscripts or codices and their jewelry-making.
In spite of its cultural wealth, Oaxaca is the third-poorest state in Mexico, with the lowest national levels of income, health and literacy. According to the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities, it ranks third on maternity mortality rates. Eighty percent of women suffer chronic malnutrition, and only 45 percent of children younger than 5 have normal weight and height.
Oaxaca also is home to the country’s largest indigenous population, descendants of pre-European societies, who for centuries have been relegated to the fringes of society.
Seventeen percent of Mexico’s close to 10 million Indians live in extreme poverty. One million of them, 34 percent, are illiterate. Sixteen percent of the homes for indigenous people don’t have any services -- no running water, no sewer or electricity.
Often they live in unsanitary conditions that are a Petri dish for illnesses such as tuberculosis that have long been eradicated in the United States. And when they leave their villages, their hunger makes them easy prey for unscrupulous, mixed-blood Mexicans.
Catalina Donato of Greenfield said she’s endured exploitative work in horrid conditions before heading north to the United States 15 years ago.
Donato began working as a maid in 1987, soon after her husband of 20 years left her. For cleaning, cooking, ironing and performing all the household chores for a family of five, she was given a floor mat to sleep on, two meals a day and $6 a month.
“It was a very sad life,” the 54-year-old Mixteca woman said in broken Spanish, a language she learned late in life.
Donato said she began migrating in search of better jobs, and after a few years she arrived in Greenfield, where she now lives with two of her children and three grandchildren.
Establishing a community here
Between 1995 and 2000, close to 40,000 indigenous people left Oaxaca, making the state the largest “exporter” of Indians in Mexico. Many follow the crops in Mexico, and many eventually find their way in the United States.
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February 06, 2005
9. Some would-be citizens languish for years in security-check limbo
By Mary Beth Sheridan - Washington Post
Rafed al Janabi, an Iraqi refugee living in Gaithersburg, was so grateful for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein that he quit his restaurant job and joined the U.S. Army. He was sent last year to Iraq to translate for a Special Forces unit.
But he soon ran into an obstacle. Janabi lacked a clearance for classified work, something available only to U.S. citizens. To qualify for citizenship, he simply needs to pass a routine security check -- but it has dragged on for nearly two years.
“I don’t see any point. I’m holding a gun in my hand, defending this country. And I can’t be a citizen?” asked Janabi, who said he was excluded from many Special Forces missions because of his lack of a clearance.
Janabi is one of a small but growing number of people facing extreme delays in becoming citizens or permanent residents, according to immigrant advocates. People from Arab and Muslim countries appear to be especially affected, many said.
It is occurring even as the overall backlog for immigration documents is shrinking. On average, it takes eight months to be naturalized, down from 14 months in October 2003, according to an immigration spokesman. But those whose names trigger a “hit” in the security check can be stuck in limbo for years.
Authorities say they have no alternative but to fully investigate when an applicant’s name resembles one in the government’s security databases. They note that they have been heavily criticized in the past when terrorists slipped through the system and gained immigration benefits.
“We will not compromise national security in the name of speeding someone through the application process,” said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Immigrant advocates agree that dangerous people should not obtain citizenship. But they say many longtime U.S. residents with no ties to terrorism are being caught up in a poorly operating system.
“They’re people who have nothing in their background that would require additional time. I do believe it’s a glitch,” said Dawn M. Lurie, an immigration lawyer in the Washington area.
Janabi said he is a case in point. He was brought to this country by the U.S. government as a refugee in 1995, after he fled Iraq. He is married to a Marine. When Janabi heard in 2003 that the Army was recruiting Arabic speakers as interpreters, he decided to volunteer, along with Iraqi friend Kadhim al Kanani, 35, of Centreville.
“We said: ‘Sure. America helped us liberate our country. It’s time to show appreciation,’ “ said Janabi, 34, who like Kanani is a private first class.
Typically, immigrants can file for citizenship after living for five years in the United States as legal permanent residents. Most eligible applicants become U.S. citizens within a few months of successfully completing an English-language and civics test. Janabi passed his citizenship exam in March 2003, and Kanani in October 2003, the men said.
But when they shipped out to Iraq in October 2004, their naturalization was still on hold because of the background checks. The men were puzzled, because they had passed an FBI security check to join the military.
They soon realized how frustrating it can be to lack citizenship. Janabi and Kanani said they could not join many Special Forces missions because they did not have security clearances. (A Special Forces spokesman, Maj. Rob Gowan, confirmed the men’s service but declined further comment.) While citizenship is only one step in getting a clearance, the men were stung that they could not even begin the process.
“I will be helping more, and can do a better job, when I have this clearance. We’re in the U.S. Army. We’re fighting for this country,” said Janabi, who said he faced gunfire and rocket attacks in Iraq.
“I don’t understand what’s a name check. How can it take two years?” he said.
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10. Woman contests deportation
Squaw Valley mother of two was brought to U.S. illegally at age 11.
By Vanessa Colón - The Fresno Bee
SQUAW VALLEY - Elsy Jimenez grew up in the central San Joaquin Valley, married and had two daughters. Now she’s fighting to watch her girls grow up here.
Jimenez faces deportation because her mother brought her to the United States illegally from El Salvador when she was 11. Jimenez did not know she had a warrant for her removal until a year ago, when she tried to become a legal resident with help from an attorney. Now her lawyer plans to file a motion to reopen her case and let an immigration court in San Francisco decide her fate.
“It’s been so many years,” Jimenez said. “It’s not fair. I was not responsible for myself [then].”
She worries she’ll be sent back to El Salvador, a home she barely knew. It’s also where her mother, who won her U.S. citizenship, now lives.
Jimenez’s mother brought her and her three siblings illegally to the United States on Aug. 7, 1986. The family crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico to El Paso, Texas. Border patrol agents at Las Cruces, N.M., seized them 10 days later, but the former Immigration and Naturalization Service released the family because of a lack of detention funding at the El Paso INS district office, according to a court document.
The INS mailed deportation notices in 1986 to an address in Woodlake, but the notices were returned by the U.S. Postal Service with the notation that none of the recipients lived at the address, according to a court document.
So the family, though their address was not known, was ordered removed from the country that year, said Martin Robles-Avila, the attorney representing Jimenez.
Jimenez, 29, never knew. She and her family were living in Orosi; they moved to Orange Cove in 1989. She later lived in Fresno before moving again. She graduated from Reedley High School in 1994 and married a legal resident June 7, 1995. Her husband is a trucker, and the family lives in the unincorporated community of Squaw Valley in the foothills east of Fresno.
Jimenez tried in 2003 to readjust her immigration status. She later went to Robles-Avila for help; he looked up her file last year and spotted the warrant.
Her mother, meanwhile, had become a U.S. citizen but moved back to El Salvador in November, Jimenez said.
Children who are brought to the United States illegally can be and have been deported, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bureau does not carry statistics on the number of children who are deported.
“Children are put in the position … because of the actions of their parents,” Haley said. “She certainly has due process. If the attorney is able to reopen her case and put it up before the judge, they will have an opportunity to plead their case.”
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February 07, 2005
11. Britain pledges tighter immigration policy
By Ed Johnson - Associated Press
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
LONDON -- The government proposed tighter immigration controls Monday and said only skilled workers who speak English would be allowed to settle in Britain permanently.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the government also would fingerprint all foreigners applying for visas to stop them from remaining in Britain once their permits expire.
The measures, which would not affect citizens of the European Union, are part of a Europe-wide drive to tackle illegal immigration - an issue particularly sensitive for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government as it gears up for national elections expected in May.
“This country needs migration. Tourists, students and migrant workers make a vital contribution to the U.K. economy. But we need to ensure that we let in migrants with the skills and talents to benefit Britain, while stopping those trying to abuse our hospitality and place a burden on our society,” Clarke said.
Announcing a five-year plan for immigration and asylum to the House of Commons, Clarke said the government would introduce a points system - already in place in Australia and Canada - favoring those with sought-after skills, such as doctors and engineers.
The government would limit the number of dependents who could join a migrant worker in Britain and scrap the automatic right to permanent residency for people who have lived in Britain for four years.
Under the proposals, only skilled workers able to support themselves financially could apply to stay permanently. They would have live in Britain for five years and be able to speak and write in English.
Asylum seekers could get only temporary permission to stay, until it was safe to return to their homelands.
The European Union justice and interior ministers hope to agree on common immigration and asylum rules by 2010. The EU policy is aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration and boosting the number of skilled immigrants.
The EU may end up creating common legal migration standards, including rules for rejecting asylum seekers, and introducing a U.S.-style green card system aimed at attracting sought after workers.
Governments across Europe are debating the issue. In France, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin has proposed creating an immigration police force to stop illegal immigrants from entering France.
A new immigration law took effect in Germany last month designed to encourage more highly qualified immigrants. Newcomers are obliged to take government-funded German-language and civics courses, or risk losing state benefits.
Denmark tightened its immigration laws in 2002 and raised the age threshold from 18 to 24 for immigrants to bring a spouse into the country.
Immigration and asylum is politically sensitive in Britain. Asylum applications rose to record levels in 2002, and Blair has sought to get control of the issue.
The government has introduced tighter border controls, worked with France to close a refugee camp used by asylum seekers as a staging post to enter Britain illegally and has speeded up the pace of processing and returning failed asylum seekers. It has cracked down on sham marriages and bogus universities offering fake courses.
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12. Foolish proposals trip up serious talk on immigration - Opinion
By Ruben Navarrette Jr. - The Dallas Morning News
From the Tucson Citizen
The American people say they want their leaders to get serious about illegal immigration.
Well then, the American people should set the example. As I look around the country, I don’t see much seriousness. More like foolishness.
In Texas, a group of conservative students at a university staged a mock roundup of illegal immigrants in which some of the students wore shirts that read “Illegal Immigrant” and “Catch me if U can,” and those who nabbed them got candy bars.
Insisting that illegal immigration hurts the economy (and thereby demonstrating that they need to take more economics courses), the students said the stunt was intended to sound the alarm for tougher enforcement of federal immigration laws. They also criticized the immigration reform plan proposed by President Bush, a conservative the young conservatives apparently believe isn’t conservative enough on this issue.
In Arizona, more than 200 people have signed up for the “Minutemen Project,” a civilian posse planning to head for the Arizona-Mexico border this spring to help the U.S. Border Patrol block the entry of illegal immigrants. Insisting that they are not vigilantes, project organizers say the response has been encouraging and that volunteers are coming from 36 states. Not bad for an effort that has run afoul of the Border Patrol. A spokesman says the agency frowns on civilians taking the law into their own hands. So does the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. A spokeswoman for the center says it is monitoring the Minutemen Project after seeing “a lot of interest” in the project on neo-Nazi Web sites.
Is this a great country, or what? Conservative college students put their ignorance on display by oversimplifying a complicated debate. Meanwhile, a bunch of yahoos plan an “immigrant-palooza” that could turn into a hoedown for bigots.
How appropriate given that much of the hostility to illegal immigrants is rooted in racism. If those streaming across the border had light skin, blue eyes and spoke English, I suspect there wouldn’t be such an uproar - even if they were coming illegally.
Even President Bush can’t seem to be serious - or realistic - in how he goes about grabbing hold of the thorny issue of illegal immigration. Much of what Bush proposes sounds reasonable: increasing the government’s allotment of green cards; creating a national registry where U.S. employers could post job openings which, if not applied for by Americans, could be filled by additional allotments of guest workers; and establishing 401(k)-style savings accounts where these workers could deposit earnings for them to tap into when they return home.
Far less reasonable is Bush’s plan to grant temporary work visas to millions of illegal immigrants already here. Under his plan, people who once could be deported would be - at least for a period of three years - undeportable. I don’t care what the administration says, that’s amnesty with a capital “A.”
Nor is there much that’s reasonable about the open-border rhetoric the president often slips into in promoting his plan. He did it in the State of the Union address when he said, to scattered applause: “We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people who want only to provide for their families.” He also did it at a Dec. 20 news conference where he seemed to say that the Border Patrol should turn a blind eye to illegal immigrants and concentrate on apprehending “crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists, not good-hearted people who are coming here to work.”
Wow. These may well be “good-hearted people who are coming here to work.” But if they come illegally, they’re also lawbreakers. The answer isn’t for law enforcement officers to ignore them and focus on more-dangerous criminals.
If that’s the way we’re going to play it, then why have a Border Patrol at all - or immigration laws for that matter? Why not just open the border and welcome anyone who comes to the United States to work?
By even suggesting as much, President Bush detracts from the debate, just as surely as those behind the immigrant hunt and the Arizona Minutemen.
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13. Asylum seekers treated poorly, U.S. panel says
By Nina Bernstein and Marc Santora - The New York Times
Thousands of people who come to the United States saying they are seeking refuge from persecution are treated like criminals while their claims are evaluated - strip-searched, shackled and often thrown into solitary confinement in local jails and federal detention centers - a bipartisan federal commission found in a report to be released today.
The report, by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an agency created by Congress in 1998, describes an ad hoc system run by the Department of Homeland Security that has extreme disparities in who is released or granted asylum, depending on whether someone seeks refuge in Texas or New York, comes from Iraq or Haiti, or is represented by a lawyer.
The New York metropolitan region ranks among the harshest in terms of the conditions of detention centers, with constant surveillance, stark quarters and degrading treatment. Those awaiting a court decision on asylum are also less likely to be freed. For example, 3.8 percent of asylum seekers were freed from the detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., compared with 94 percent in San Antonio. There were 8.4 percent released from the detention center in Queens, while in Chicago 81 percent were let go.
One of the experts who examined the centers for the commission, Craig Haney, a psychologist who briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject yesterday, said he was shocked by what he found.
“I was taken aback by the severity of conditions, the severity of deprivations and, frankly, the expense,” he said in an interview. He said that one of 19 centers examined handled asylum seekers differently from criminals - in Broward County, Fla., where many seeking refuge are from Cuba and where former Cuban refugees form a potent political force. At $83 a day, the Florida center costs less than half the $200 per detainee of the Queens detention center, though both are run by the same company.
The report said that women and children seeking asylum, “whose trauma histories and emotional needs may be more severe and require more specialized training,” were at greater risk of harm.
Among other recommendations, the commission urged that a high-level protector of refugees be appointed to monitor the system and correct inequities.
Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within Homeland Security that oversees the detention of asylum seekers, defended the system.
“We have a robust inspections program that conducts audits of our detention facilities nationwide, and our detention facilities are accredited and subjected to regular inspection by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees,” he said in an interview. “They are clean and they are safe environments. Even better, the detention system protects the public.”
The commission had been asked by Congress to examine the effectiveness of the nation’s asylum regulations, created in part as a response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, in an effort to balance the country’s desire to shelter those suffering from persecution abroad with its need to keep out criminals and terrorists.
The system, known as expedited removal, requires those seeking asylum at airports and borders to be sent back immediately unless they are found to have a “credible fear” of persecution when questioned by immigration officers. Those who pass the test - a vast majority - are then detained until an immigration judge decides the validity of their claim. Unless they are released pending a decision, the average detainee is held for 64 days and a third stay more than 90 days - some even years, the report found.
The number of asylum seekers, and the rate at which they are freed, have both dropped sharply since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the study showed. But rates of asylum also differed sharply by national groups between 2000 and 2004, with more than 80 percent of Cubans given a permanent right to stay, along with more than 60 percent of Iraqis. By contrast, just more than 10 percent of those from Haiti and fewer than 5 percent of those from El Salvador were granted asylum. Detainees represented by lawyers were up to 30 times more likely to gain asylum, but in some places fewer than half the detainees had lawyers.
With the exception of the operation at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the report found that asylum seekers were not pressed to withdraw their asylum claims before the interview, nor were claims summarily denied. But it found that judges often wrongly used airport statements to deny asylum later.
Before the change in the law, only asylum seekers with criminal records were detained. Now, nearly all are locked up with ordinary criminals. In 2003, 5,585 men and 1,015 women seeking asylum were jailed. To cut down on that number, the commission recommended that the airport interviewers, and not just immigration judges, be given the authority to grant asylum on the spot when warranted.
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February 08, 2005
14. Human Rights commission criticizes Mexico’s immigration detention centers
Associated Press
From the San Diego Union-Tribune
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican immigration detention centers where thousands of Central American and other illegal migrants are kept before they can be deported do not have adequate space or facilities, the country’s National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday.
Mexico is a major route for Latin American and even Asian migrants heading to the United States. Many arrive by bus, train or even plane, then hire a smuggler to get them across the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Tuesday, the human rights commission said in a statement it reviewed several detention centers and found “anomalies that obviously go against the dignity and fundamental rights of those being held there.”
The statement said many facilities lacked beds, access to water, medical services, and even a quarantine area to hold migrants with contagious diseases.
It also criticized Mexican officials’ failure to notify individual consulates that a foreigner was being held - something Mexico has accused the United States of doing with Mexican migrants.
Last year, the World Court at The Hague ruled that the United States violated the rights of 51 Mexicans on death row by disregarding the 1963 Vienna Convention.
That convention requires an “arresting government” to notify a foreign national of the right to talk with the detainee’s consulate or embassy, and says foreign governments can arrange legal help for their nationals.
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15. Judge orders Islamic fund-raiser deported
By John M. Broder - New York Times
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 - A federal immigration judge on Tuesday ordered a former fund-raiser for a prominent Islamic charity to be deported, saying his activities posed a threat to national security.
The judge found that the man, Abdel Jabber Hamdan, who has lived in Orange County for more than 20 years, knew or should have known that the money he raised for the Holy Land Foundation was being used to support terrorism. The government contends that the foundation has funneled more than $12 million to Hamas and other Palestinian organizations that the United States considers sponsors of terrorism.
The immigration judge, D. D. Sitgraves, ordered Mr. Hamdan, 44, who has been in custody since last summer, deported. But Judge Sitgraves said he could not be sent to Jordan, where he was born in a Palestinian refugee camp, because he would be at risk of torture by the Jordanian government because he has been accused by the American authorities of terror-related activities.
Mr. Hamdan’s lawyer, Marc Van Der Hout, said he was likely to appeal the deportation order, saying the government had not proven that Mr. Hamdan had knowingly aided terrorists.
But Mr. Van Der Hout expressed gratitude that Judge Sitgraves had recognized the risk of sending Mr. Hamdan back to Jordan.
“We are happy Mr. Hamdan has been granted at least temporary protection from being returned to Jordan,” he said, “as it is clear his life would be in grave danger there.”
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16. Stages set for local, national battles on immigrant licenses
Massachusetts bill would let drivers apply
By Yvonne Abraham - Boston Globe
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are driving without licenses on Massachusetts streets. Some carry permits from their home countries. Some carry none at all.
What to do about those unlicensed drivers will soon be the subject of heated battle on Beacon Hill. Legislators have proposed a law that would give illegal immigrants the right to apply for licenses, because, they argue, those drivers are on the roads anyway, and might as well meet the state’s safety standards.
Opponents say issuing licenses amounts to an endorsement of those who flout the law, and that instead of making it easier for illegal immigrants to drive, the state should be cracking down on them.
The upcoming dispute over driver’s licenses in Massachusetts will take place amid a pitched national debate over what to do about the estimated 9.3 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
Legislation proposed at the federal level may render the local debate moot: Today, the US House of Representatives is set to debate a bill that would prohibit states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Proposed by Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, the bill, which also tightens other controls on immigrants, puts him and other GOP legislators at odds with President Bush, who has spoken in support of overhauling the nation’s immigration system to allow an estimated 6 million illegal immigrants already working here to apply for temporary work permits.
Supporters of the Massachusetts legislation are pushing forward anyway.
State law currently requires those applying for licenses here to produce a Social Security number, which most illegal immigrants cannot get. But 11 other states, including New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Oregon, allow motorists to get licenses without proving they are lawful residents.
Similar legislation was proposed on Beacon Hill in 2003, but did not advance.
At the time, Governor Mitt Romney spoke in firm opposition to the bill, and there was insufficient support in the House to put it to a vote.
Immigrant advocates concede the battle may be tough this time, too. But Representative Timothy J. Toomey, the Cambridge Democrat who is the bill’s lead sponsor, said he was optimistic, especially given the leadership team announced by House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi this week, which includes many who are sympathetic to immigrants’ causes.
February 09, 2005
17. Judge allows suit against U.S. immigration official
By Patricia Giovine - Hispanic Business News
An association of Texas lawyers says it sees an important precedent in a court's rejection of a request for immunity from a federal agent accused of aggression against a Mexican woman trying lawfully to enter the United States.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone means a civil suit against immigration inspector Humberto Gonzalez can proceed.
“The decision sets a precedent, as it implies that all foreigners who come to international border crossings to enter the United States legitimately are protected by the guarantees the U.S. Constitution offers,” Javier Maldonado, executive director of the Texas Lawyers' Committee, told EFE.
His group joined El Paso attorney Francisco Dominguez in filing the suit in October 2003 on behalf of Maria Antonieta Martinez Aguero, a 46-year-old resident of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, who said Gonzalez verbally and physically abused her two years earlier.
Dominguez said the incident occurred on Oct. 4, 2001, as Martinez Aguero was accompanying her aunt, Antonia McDaniels Aguero, on a visit to nearby El Paso to conduct personal business.
When the two women encountered Gonzalez at the Paso del Norte border crossing, the immigration inspector cursed at them for not having updated their - still valid - travel documents with the new “laser” visas.
“At some point,” according to a statement from the Texas Lawyers' Committee, “Agent Gonzales forcibly grabbed Ms. Martinez Aguero, twisted her arms behind her back, shoved her against a wall, and kicked and hit her. Soon thereafter, Ms. Martinez Aguero suffered an epileptic seizure. Federal agents delayed medical assistance for no justified reason.”
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18. Students journey across America to study immigration
From Waldo Village Soup - (Maine)
Eighteen area students participating in the 10th grade Cross-America Trekkers program traveled by air last December to southern California, where they met agents of the San Diego County Border Patrol and, later, with Enrique Morones, executive director of the humanitarian group called Border Angels. The goal of both meetings was to offer students an opportunity to develop a global perspective on American policy and explore different cultural concepts of “community.”
Students first met with the San Diego County Border Patrol where they learned about equipment used by enforcement agents to patrol and control immigration into the United States. Patrol agents explained different life-saving techniques and supplies that all agents carry to protect immigrants entering the United States-and the agents themselves-from the extreme hot and cold temperatures typical of the high-desert environment of the border region. Students also learned about the rights of individuals crossing the border into the U.S., whether they arrive legally or illegally.
Students learned more at Pantoja Park in downtown San Diego where - after five straight days of rain - the sun appeared just long enough for students to spend 30 minutes talking with Enrique Morones, executive director of the humanitarian group known as Border Angels. Border Angels honors its motto, “Saving People’s Lives - Making A Difference,” by maintaining emergency water stations throughout the high-desert areas surrounding the Mexican border to prevent people from expiring in the harsh environment. Each station is supplied with water, food, clothing and/or blankets and tended by Border Angels’ dedicated group of volunteers.
The moving personal accounts of Enrique’s experiences of helping people survive in the desert, along with photos of Border Angels’ ceremonies at unidentified pauper grave sites, deeply impressed both students and trip leaders. One student’s evaluation stated, “The whole border thing was the most educational, learning a lot about the conditions of people crossing and what not.” Another student wrote, “I really liked talking with Enrique from Border Angels because he showed us a different way of looking at the issues with the border.they didn’t take sides on the issue. They go out to save lives and it taught me that one person can make a difference.”
Trekkers is a non-profit, youth-serving organization focused on providing young people in mid-coast Maine with dynamic ways to form relationships with caring adults. For more information, visit http://www.trekkersonline or call (207) 594-5095.
Border Angels is a non-profit humanitarian organization of volunteers dedicated to reducing death by exposure of immigrants traveling through Imperial Valley deserts and the mountains surrounding San Diego County and additional areas along the United States and Mexican borders. For more information visit http://www.borderangels.org/
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19. Goal of U.S. citizenship reached
By Lornet Turnbull - Seattle Times
Yesterday, Mohammed Al Amiri - refugee of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq - became a citizen of the United States.
The 40-year-old had longed for what he calls “the big title” - immigration status that will make it easy for him to travel back to the country he fled during the first Gulf War and visit family he’s not seen in 15 years.
“That has always been my wish, to go back to Iraq as a U.S. citizen,” Al Amiri said, as he sat among 62 other immigrants from 25 countries at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security offices in Tukwila.
But for a while it looked like U.S. citizenship for the Kent resident was not possible.
He is among hundreds of permanent residents the U.S. government now concedes were wrongly denied citizenship sometime between 1998 and 2004 because of minor infractions.
Officials acknowledge that during that time, the Seattle office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services routinely misapplied the “good moral character” standard for naturalization, imposing a huge penalty on otherwise lawful residents for offenses as minor as traffic violations.
The best-known case is that of Kichul Lee of Federal Way, who in 1999 was fined $152 after collecting 51 oysters along a Washington state beach - about three dozen more shellfish than the state allowed.
New to the country at the time, Lee said he didn’t know he was exceeding the limit. Still, officials two years ago said the infraction reflected a lack of moral character and denied Lee citizenship.
His resulting lawsuit was certified as a class action last month, meaning hundreds of immigrants who were similarly denied citizenship could see their cases reversed.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik ordered Lee, Al Amiri and two others sworn in as citizens, even as the lawsuit progressed. All will become citizens this week.
Yesterday as he sat waiting to take the oath of citizenship, Al Amiri fretted that something might still go wrong.
It’s the story of his life.
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February 10, 2005
20. House to vote on Immigration Bill
By Suzanne Gamboa - Associated Press
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Although reshaping U.S. immigration law is a priority of President Bush’s second term, his proposal for a guestworker program wasn’t on the table as the Republican-controlled House took up an immigration bill this week.
Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, sponsor of the bill scheduled for a vote Thursday, said his legislation deals with border security. Including Bush’s guestworker proposal or other measures would muddy the debate and mark all immigrants as terrorists, he said.
“I think they are two separate issues. The immigration question is something the Judiciary Committee will handle later on,” Sensenbrenner said.
“I am looking for something that’s effective in dealing not only with the labor shortage, particularly in certain industries, but also one that is fair to American workers and one which will be effective in dealing this particular problem rather than passing a piece of paper and having the president sign it,” he said.
The administration may have given a boost to Bush’s guestworker proposal by offering support to Sensenbrenner’s bill Wednesday if Congress agrees to amend some provisions.
Among the amendments it sought, the administration wants Congress to abolish the annual limit on the number of asylum recipients who can get permanent residency. The limit is 10,000 annually. Immigration advocates and some members of Congress have sought to abolish that limit for years.
The administration also said asked for changes to ensure the bill doesn’t create new barriers to obtaining asylum. Several religious and human rights groups and Democrats have opposed provisions in the bill that would make it easier for immigration to reject asylum claims. They argue these measures would reduce the chance that some people legitimately seeking safe haven could obtain asylum. Republicans agreed to allow a vote on a Democratic amendment that would strip the asylum provisions from the bill.
If the bill is approved, the House may attach it to a spending package to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and send it to the Senate.
Last year, Sensenbrenner tried to attached his immigration proposals to an intelligence but dropped them after he was promised an early vote in this session and that his proposals could be attached to the first bill certain to pass Congress.
The bill is expected to have more difficulty in the Senate, where several Republican lawmakers have said they want it considered as part of a broader immigration package.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee, has said he supports Sensenbrenner’s proposals to bar illegal immigrants from using driver’s licenses as identification to get on airplanes or enter federal buildings, but that they must be dealt with along with other immigration proposals.
Democrats criticized the bill Wednesday, saying its driver’s license provisions amount to a costly unfunded mandate for states to produce more secure identification. They accused Republicans of speeding the bill through the House without hearings and full debate.
Democrats also said the bill would undermine driver’s license regulations Congress passed in the intelligence reorganization law.
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21. Panel rejects immigration law training bill
By Rob Moritz - Arkansas News
LITTLE ROCK - Despite last minute support by the Arkansas State Police director, a measure that would allow state troopers the training needed to enforce immigration laws was defeated in a House committee Wednesday.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, said he would talk to committee members before making any decision on whether to bring the bill back before the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The bill, which needed at least 11 votes to get out of committee, received nine, with seven voting against it.
Friday, State Police Col. Steve Dozier expressed reservations after the bill was presented to the same committee. Dozier did not attend that committee meeting.
Wednesday, Dozier said he had since met with Hutchinson and his brother, Rep. Timothy Hutchinson, R-Lowell, and discussed the bill at length.
He said he decided to support the measure after he was assured that he would have the final say in how many troopers would be trained, or if his agency would even participate.
Jeremy Hutchinson told the committee Wednesday that House Bill 1012 would allow state police to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security for the training of troopers. The training would be done over a two-month period in various aspects of immigration law.
He said the training is free and would give state troopers the same authority as federal immigration officers. The bill stipulates that the specially trained troopers would only have federal jurisdiction on highways and interstates in Arkansas.
Hutchinson also said Alabama has entered into an agreement with Homeland Security and some of that state’s troopers have already received training. He added that it could be arranged for the Department of Homeland Security to cover the overtime costs accrued by other troopers while filling in for those who take the training.
During the meeting, several lawmakers spoke against the measure, saying they thought it would additional work to state troopers already busy in the field.
They also questioned the need for the legislation. Some lawmakers also expressed the concern that more complaints of racial profiling could arise if the legislation is passed.
Sheila Gomez, director of Catholic Charities of Arkansas said the measure could cause illegal immigrants to fear the police and not want to call officers for help for fear they would be arrested and deported.
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22. Immigrant protection passes state Senate
By Steve Terrell - The New Mexican
A bill that passed the state Senate by one vote Wednesday would make illegal immigrants feel more comfortable about reporting crimes to police, proponents said.
But some opponents said Senate Bill 103 could turn New Mexico into a “safe haven for terrorists” if it becomes law.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Española, would prohibit state and local police from arresting anyone solely because of their immigration status. It is backed by Somos Un Pueblo Unidos, an immigrant-rights group, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The bill is in response to the proposed federal Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act, which was designed to promote local and state enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Martinez, a former magistrate judge, said most of the estimated 150,000 illegal immigrants in the state live in “mixed families” in which some members are in the United States legally.
Such families, Martinez said, often are afraid to report crimes to police for fear of being deported. He told senators his bill would encourage illegal immigrants to give police information they have on criminal activities and serve as witnesses in court proceedings.
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